Ready to grow?Short answer: Go to Apple Business Connect, sign in with your Apple Account, and search for your business. Claim the existing listing or add a new one, then fill in your place card: name, category, hours, and photos. Verify by phone PIN or company document, and Apple approves it in a few days. It is free.
Picture a coffee shop two blocks from a busy office. It ranks fine on Google. But when someone walks out at 9am, pulls out their iPhone, and says "coffee near me" to Siri, the shop does not appear. A competitor with an Apple Maps listing gets the walk-in instead. That gap is the problem, and it is common. Local-search practitioners writing setup guides keep pointing at the same overlooked win: businesses pour effort into Google Business Profile and never claim Apple Maps, so every iPhone and Siri search quietly goes to whoever did.
Apple Maps is the default map on every iPhone and iPad. According to Shopify's guide on adding a business to Apple Maps, it has roughly 500 million monthly users, and listing your business is free. The tool you use is Apple Business Connect, and the whole thing is a 20-minute job you do once.
Here is what Apple Business Connect is before you start. Apple's own support documentation describes it as Apple's official self-service portal for adding or claiming a business listing and managing how you appear across Apple Maps, Siri, and Wallet. Your listing is called a "place card." It holds your name, category, hours, photos, and the buttons customers tap to call you, get directions, or open your website. An Apple Account is required to sign in. If you already buy apps or music on an iPhone, you have one.
Go to Apple Business Connect and sign in with your Apple Account
Open Apple Business Connect and sign in. BrightLocal's setup guide directs owners to businessconnect.apple.com and the "Get Started" button, which is the same door. Use the Apple Account tied to you or your business, not a personal account you might lose access to when an employee leaves. For the coffee shop, that means the owner's account, not a former barista's.
If you manage more than one location, you can add them all under one account later. For now, get one clean login working. This account becomes the key to your place card, so treat it the way you treat the keys to the shop.
Setting up Apple Maps sits alongside the rest of your local presence, not instead of it. If you have not done the Google side yet, our walk-through on filling out your Google Business Profile properly covers the same fields in that tool, and much of the information carries straight over.
Find your business or add a new one
Once you are in, search for your business by name and address. Apple pulls place data from several sources, so an unclaimed listing for your shop may already exist. This is the fork in the road.
If your coffee shop is already in Apple's database, you claim the existing card. This keeps any history and reviews attached to the right place and avoids a confusing duplicate. If nothing comes up, you add a new location. BrightLocal's guide notes the same choice: if the business is not already in Apple's database, you pick the option to add a new one.
Search carefully before you add. A duplicate listing splits your presence and makes you look sloppy to a customer who finds both. Claim first, add only if it is genuinely not there.
Fill in your place card: name, category, hours, photos, and links
Now fill the card out fully. This is the part that decides whether Siri offers you when someone asks for "coffee near me," so do not rush it.
Start with the exact business name, written the way it appears on your sign, with no extra keywords stuffed in. Pick the most accurate category. A coffee shop is a coffee shop, not a generic "restaurant," because the category shapes which searches you surface for. Add your full address and phone number exactly as they appear everywhere else you are listed. Consistency across the web matters here, which is why keeping your name, address, and phone number identical across every directory is worth the fifteen minutes it takes to check.
Then add the details that make the card useful:
- Hours, including the real ones, so Siri does not send someone to a locked door at 7am
- Photos of the storefront, the interior, and the product, because the visual is often what earns the tap
- Your website and social links
- Actions and Showcases, the buttons and promotional tiles that let customers order, book, or see a current offer directly from the card
Think of the place card the way a regular thinks of your shop window. The name gets them to look, the photo gets them to cross the street, and the hours tell them the light is on. Fill every field you can.
Across the owner-run businesses we help get set up, the pattern is almost always the same: the Google listing is spotless and the Apple place card is either empty or does not exist. The owner assumed the two were connected. They are not. When we fill in the Apple card with the same hours and photos already sitting in Google, the business starts showing up for the iPhone crowd it had been missing the whole time, and nobody had to learn anything new to make it happen.
Verify your business
Apple will not publish your card until it confirms you actually run the business. There are two paths, and which one you get depends on what you are doing.
If you are claiming an existing single location, Apple typically verifies by phone. According to Shopify's guide, Apple calls the business phone number on the listing and reads you a PIN, which you enter to prove you can answer that line. For the coffee shop claiming its one existing card, this is usually the whole process. Make sure the phone number on the listing is one you can actually pick up.
If you are adding a brand-new business, Apple runs a one-time company verification instead. Shopify's guide lays out the two options:
- Document Review: you upload an official document, such as a business license or a utility bill, that ties your name to the business.
- Domain Validation: you add a TXT record to your website's DNS settings, which proves you control the domain. If your website is on Squarespace, Wix, or a similar host, this is a copy-and-paste into the DNS panel, not a coding task.
Pick whichever you can do faster. If you already have your business license as a PDF, Document Review is simplest. If you are comfortable in your domain settings, the DNS TXT record works. Either one satisfies the same requirement, which is Apple confirming the business is really yours before it goes live to 500 million people.
Keep your listing current
Verification is not the finish line, it is the start of the listing being useful. After you submit, Apple reviews the new listing, and Shopify's guide notes this usually takes just a few days. You will get an email when it is live.
Once it is up, the card only helps you if it stays true. Update your hours before a holiday so Siri stops sending people to a closed shop. Add seasonal hours when they change. Swap in fresh photos when you repaint or add a new drink, because a two-year-old photo of an old menu board quietly costs you taps. A listing you set once and never touch slowly drifts out of date, and a wrong "open now" is worse than no listing at all.
Apple Maps is one map. To be the answer everywhere someone might ask, the same care goes into the other engines. Our local SEO checklist for small businesses runs through the full set in order, and if you want the Microsoft side covered too, getting listed on Bing uses the same approach for a different map and search engine.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free to add my business to Apple Maps?
Yes. Apple Business Connect is Apple's free self-service portal, and Shopify's guide confirms listing a business through it costs nothing. There is no paid tier required to appear in Apple Maps, Siri, or on the place card. You only invest the 20 minutes it takes to fill everything in.
How long does Apple take to approve my listing?
For a new business, Shopify's guide says Apple's review usually takes just a few days after you submit. Claiming an existing single location by phone PIN can be faster, since the verification happens on the call. You will get an email once the card is live.
Do I still need Google if I set up Apple Maps?
Yes, they are separate systems and neither feeds the other. Google Business Profile covers Android, Google Search, and Google Maps, while Apple Business Connect covers iPhones, iPads, and Siri. Owners who do only one leave half their local searches to a competitor. Do both.
What is the difference between the two verification methods?
Phone-PIN verification is for claiming an existing single location: Apple calls the listed number and reads you a code. Company verification is for a brand-new business and uses either Document Review, where you upload an official document, or Domain Validation, where you add a TXT record to your DNS. You do one or the other, not both.
That coffee shop two blocks from the office does not need a bigger budget to catch the 9am walk-in. It needs a place card that answers Siri when the question is asked. Claiming it is free and takes about as long as making a pot of drip. Fonzy handles the local setup and the ongoing updates for owners who would rather run the shop than keep track of five different maps, so the listing stays right without you thinking about it.
